Thank you.
Honourable Chair, vice-chairs, and members of the justice and human rights committee, thank you for the invitation to appear before you today as part of your important study on COVID-19 and its impact on the judicial system.
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted every industry and sector like nothing in our history, and our courts and justice system are no exception. Prior to the crisis our courts were already stressed with enormous backlogs and delays in many provinces and territories; the closure of courthouses across the country as part of the emergency public health measures has compounded the problem further, delaying trials and due process.
Once regular court operations resume, there will be an unprecedented requirement to begin empanelling juries across the country. While responding to a summons is mandatory, many Canadians will be very unwilling or unable to participate, for very real reasons.
During the first wave of the pandemic, the Canadian Juries Commission conducted a national opinion poll and found that Canadians were more willing to donate blood or volunteer for a community organization than to serve on a jury when emergency measures lift. Similarly, Canadians rated jury duty lower in terms of civic importance than donating blood or volunteering within the community. These opinions are a direct result of decades of underinvestment in jury duty across the country and of not keeping pace with the modern world and its challenges.
As the crisis comes to an end, many Canadians will be unwilling or unable to respond to a jury summons, yet responding will be expected of them. Transitioning out of the period of unemployment, layoffs and tenuous employment, for many Canadians the focus will now be on their jobs, families and availability for work. Many will be experiencing financial hardships not seen in decades and will still have family care commitments that will not have expired and may have been exacerbated by COVID-19 health issues. Canadian workplaces will be less willing and sympathetic towards supporting employees during time spent in court, given their own economic fragility and desire to revitalize operations. This will put mounting pressure on employees to respect their employers more than their summons.
Alarming data has emerged during the pandemic that highlights the significant worsening of Canadians' mental health. It has raised concerns among health care professionals of a looming echo mental health crisis. Statistics Canada has observed Canadians reporting increases in anxiety, depression and PTSD, as well as alarming increases in suicidal ideation as a result of the pandemic. Reported substance abuse and alcohol consumption among Canadians has increased across the pandemic. All reported figures are higher among vulnerable communities, those with existing mental illness, the indigenous community, the LGBTQ community and, sadly, among our young adults.
In 2017, I was very pleased to appear before this committee as part of its groundbreaking study on jury duty mental health and the publication of its landmark report, “Improving Support for Jurors in Canada”, in 2018. The 11 recommendations contained in that report stand today. They include providing more information to prospective jurors about jury duty, providing psychological support to jurors, increasing daily jury pay to $120 per day and federal funding to the provinces and territories to implement the findings of that report.
It is now almost three years since the publication of this report, and sadly, very little has been done since to see these recommendations universally adopted.
The Canadian Juries Commission was born out of those recommendations to represent and support Canadians on jury duty and in coroners' inquests and to provide programs directly to jurors to assist them in their roles, working with the provinces and territories and the judiciary to improve jury duty.
The recent federal budget detailed significant investments in mental health to meet the challenges of COVID-19, vital investments to combat systemic racism and improve access to justice across Canada, and also investments to repair our economy and grow back post-pandemic. These investments must be met with similar investments in jury duty, which is the last remaining mandatory civic duty in our democracy. This current crisis will only serve to compound and deepen foundational concerns for jury duty identified by this committee and the Canadian Juries Commission.
Once selected, jurors are identified as judges of the facts and are exposed to the same graphic and disturbing evidence as others in the court as part of their role. However, unlike the judge, legal counsel, court staff, police and first responders, they are not afforded access to new and evolving evidence-based treatments to assist them after the verdict is delivered. Jurors are the group in the court most vulnerable to developing mental ill health, as jury duty is not a vocation, has no training and affords no organizational support, yet is exposed to the same graphic evidence, and without a support network.
Juror mental health requires a specific intervention through evidence-based assessments and treatments and trauma-informed approaches, and it must be given the same priority everywhere and made available to all regions of the country.
Those concerns for juror mental health predate the pandemic. Now Canadians may be returning to court experiencing elevated mental ill health from the pandemic and exposed to new trauma in the court.
It is vital that we invest in mental health.
Thank you.